Veronica Brill: Poker’s Resident Hero

Brad: Yo, what is happening my friend. Welcome to the chasing poker greatness podcast. As always, this is your host, Brad Wilson, the founder of enhanceyouredge.com and today’s guest is the always tenacious and thoughtful, Veronica Brill. Veronica has been in and around the poker world for over a decade and was of course recently thrust directly into the spotlight for blowing the lid off the alleged Mike possible cheating scandal. While we do touch base on Mike Postle, I wanted to make a conscious effort to a void a conversation fully focused on a man who has done so much harm to the poker community. A single chapter may be what you’re most familiar with when it comes to Veronica’s story, but you’ll soon learn it’s simply that. A singular event and an amazing human being’s journey through life. In our conversation today, you’ll learn how Veronica fell into the poker world in the first place, the events that led to her getting involved with Stones Casino, you’ll learn who my ideal poker student is when Veronica turns the tables and starts interviewing me, and much, much more. So, without any further ado, I bring to you the indomitable, Veronica Brill.

Brad: Veronica, good afternoon, how you doing?

Veronica: I am well, thank you. How are you?

Brad: Doing very well. It’s a sunny day outside. I can’t really go outside and interact with anybody right now. But it still looks nice.

Veronica: Yeah, it’s raining over here in Silicon Valley. It feels so pompous to call it Silicon Valley. It’s San Jose. Well, Santa Clara.

Brad: The Bay Area,

Veronica: The bay, yeah. I keep thinking of the Bay Area’s like Oakland. Oakland is like the hub. You know, it’s where all the culture comes from. It’s where all the great music comes from. So, everything outside of Oakland is like we’re trying to be the bay. Although like, I don’t want anyone yelling at me when I’m walking down the street. We are the Bay. But yeah.

Brad: So, let’s start this out. I want to know; how did you get involved in playing cards? Like what’s your story getting involved with poker in the in the first place?

Veronica: I dated a guy for most of my 20s. And he was a pretty terrible poker player. I didn’t, I didn’t, I don’t know. He didn’t do it for his primary income. So, I’m just actually joking. But he was playing poker. And he’d be out all night. And, you know, I was like, where have you been? What’s going on? And he’s like, I’m playing poker. So, one day, I actually went to the casino, and he was legitimately playing poker in this like grimy poker room. And it was like, dusty, and I think this one poker room, you could still smoke back then, it was in Canada.

Brad: You’re like, you’re like suspicious. You’re like, no, I need to see

Veronica: I didn’t go suspicious, but I was just like, well, why can’t I do it? You know, it wasn’t like, it wasn’t a jealousy thing. But it was just like, well, I want to play too.

Brad: Sure.

Veronica: And so, I saw it was just like, it wasn’t as appealing as I thought. And then I don’t know, I started, he was really interested in it. So, I started watching poker on TV. The first house I bought is like this really funny story that they left the satellite dish on the roof, and like it, only a few channels worked. And one of them was this like, because I was in Canada, this British poker show or poker channel. And it was like all those old like Tony G, Silverfish and like all these like high stakes cash games in this like, grimy British basement somewhere. And I legitimately just like, I couldn’t afford to pay for cable so I just like watch this channel endlessly when I wasn’t working, and then I decided to go play and the first time I ever played was at the MGM. And of course, the first week I played I like, I just like luck sacked every sit and go and every cash game because I was like super nervous. And if I had it, I just put all my chips in. And then I was like, I’m so good. I’m going to keep playing.

Brad: I got this figured out.

Veronica: Yeah, I mean, like how am I not a professional sponsored right now. And then it just kept playing. I’ve always liked it.

Brad: How long ago is this?

Veronica: Oh, honey. So, I’m forced to that was when I was like 25, 26.

Brad: What year? 2003?

Veronica: Which was embarrassing. Yeah. Yeah, it’s embarrassing because you think I’d be better at it by now. But the game, I mean, I did get good at it for a while when it was a lot easier. I would say, I, so I played in this casino called River Cree, it was by my house. Shout out to river Korean Edmonton, Alberta. I would go there, play, it was like a one, two or one, three. And they had a really high cap. I think it was like $1,000. But we were two hours south of a big oil rig up north, where guys were dropping out of high school to go work and make 200,000 a year.

Brad: Yeah.

Veronica: And these guys would come down on the weekends and set that money on fire. And I, I just played very ABC, and I thought I was the best poker player ever. I made money all the time. And then once the game changed, a lot changed for me in many different circumstances. That’s a long story. But the game did change. All the bad players got better. I didn’t put any, I didn’t put enough effort into the game, because I have a different career. So yeah, it’s it changed for me. It became kind of an outlet for me. I was I did have a son who ended up passing away from cancer. And during that time, when I would leave the house while he was sick, it was like an outlet. It was like a place where I just could cut loose for four hours. And so, it wasn’t this strategic, you know, game that I enjoyed. It was just like my release, and then I’d come home to, you know, a very bad situation. Yeah. And then when he passed away, it was like my way to go somewhere to not think about things. And of course, I was having too many drinks. And yeah, so it’s like poker has like kind of been a parallel in my life of like many things. It’s been many things to me. And in many different times of my life. I’ve always enjoyed it, I’ve always enjoyed, like, especially enjoy Omaha eight. That’s probably my favorite game. But I think like when I started studying it, I did fairly well on the ladies event this year at the World Series of Poker. I did take that seriously this year. So yeah.

Brad: I think it’s very common for escapism in poker to kind of go hand in hand, just kind of that that release that where you can compartmentalize and not really think about the other things that are going on. I’m very, very sorry. You know, I have two young children and I can’t imagine, like, I think that it’s, it’s almost, it’s an unthinkable thing. And it’s pretty clear that like, yeah, playing poker to the best of your ability is not even top 100 in priority, right? It’s more.

Veronica: Yeah. And I just feel honestly, like, during the whole Postle era, and before that, I had my own game, Veronica and friends. And I feel like looking back right now I feel like I’m waking up after my son’s death. It’s been over three years now. And I’m just waking up. But during that time, I look at that, as like this Veronica, who was trying to escape. And like, I don’t want to think about it. Let’s just, you know, let’s have a drink. Let’s have a good time. And that’s all I wanted it to be. And I actually, I think I started disliking poker recently, because my mind had, you know, anchored itself to poker as this party. Like, it’s party for me, which wasn’t healthy, long term. And I’ve been trying to escape from that. And also, it’s been so long since I put time into studying poker, that it’s frustrating to me because I’m very competitive. And so, it’s my mind’s like, no, I don’t want to play poker. I don’t want that party. Like we’re trying to wake up. We’re trying to now process the grief. And so yeah, it’s I think, like, I think the next few years poker is going to become what it was to me in my late 20s and early 30s, which is like a game that has a lot of strategy involved. I really enjoy games of strategy. And maybe I’ll start to not have hopes of becoming a professional poker player, but becoming better than what I am now and hopefully, enjoying unpacking some of that strategy.

Brad: What is the area called in Canada where the kind of manual laborers go to make the 200k because I have a friend of mine that’s in Canada. And he mentioned it to me one time and I’m like, I have no idea what you’re talking about. And he sent me a picture of this, it was like the largest truck I’ve ever seen in my life. And basically, they do nothing up there but get oil. Don’t they get oil from the sands? Is that how it is?

Veronica: Yeah, so it’s Fort McMurray. And I feel, I feel bad because I haven’t lived in Canada for so long that I almost forgot that. So, it there are oil sands. They exactly call it oil sands, and they process the oil or they process the sand and remove the oil from it. And it’s one of the biggest oil manufacturing plants in the world, I believe. There’s a lot of oil in Canada.

Brad: Yeah.

Veronica: So, it’s Fort McMurray. It’s a two hour very dangerous highway. Two-hour drive to Edmonton. I think it’s like a single lane. When I left it was single lane. I haven’t lived in Canada for I think 10 years now. But yeah, I remember we get a lot of accidents. I, I’m also a nurse, and I used to work as a nurse in Canada and I worked in a major trauma center, Royal Alec hospital, Royal Alexandra hospital. And we would get a lot of traumas from that frickin highway because it was single lane. And there’s all these like industrial trucks and guys trying to get to the casino and like, it’s, yeah, not well lit. I see most of the year. So

Brad: Trying to pump their money away. I mean, there’s, there’s a reason why they get paid 200k, right? Because I think their daily life is not so glamorous, right?

Veronica: Yeah, they live in tents. And there’s a very disproportionate amount of men compared to women. And you know, their interactions. They’re just there to grind. It’s the, anyone I’ve talked to that’s worked up there. It’s just a fucking grind. I just wouldn’t do it for I don’t care. I don’t care about 200,000 a year. I just wouldn’t subject myself to that.

Brad: Yeah. I personally wouldn’t either. But I guess I could understand maybe somebody with limited options that just wants to do it for a few years and take their shot.

Veronica: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think there’s a time of your in your life, everyone has to grind, you have to do a little bit of sacrifice and do that shit job. I did that too. But I also like I’m at a time in my life where I, I have a good job, and I make decent enough money where I can take care of myself. But there, I think that if you offered me a job double what I’m making now. But it wasn’t something that I enjoyed. I wouldn’t take it. I’m at a point now where I prioritize fulfillment, and happiness. And if that meant like, a quiet target job stocking shelves, I would do it. And just like, move somewhere where it’s cheaper rent. I just need, I need to strive towards happiness and fulfillment now, rather than just like grinding for more fucking money.

Brad: Yeah, I think that’s called wisdom. As we get older, we realize, oh, yeah, we need happiness. We need fulfillment in our existence, right? And in our, in the pre-interview, we were talking about, you know, content creators and figuring out what to do with your different channels and stuff like that. And like for me, I said, I’m still, I’m still in this process, right? Things are still moving forward. I’m still doing it. But like I said, every time I get off one of these calls, I still feel the dopamine release and the adrenaline and I get off and I’m just pumped, like, I’m like, you know, these, these are the, some of just amazing conversations that I’m having with exceptional folks. And that’s enough to get me excited. And yeah, right. Currently, I am paying money to do it. But I still love, love it just in general. And I think maybe the day that I stopped loving it is probably the day that that the pod comes to an end. But

Veronica: Yeah, there’s a so I created my page, which actually wanted to do before the whole possible gate thing came up. And it’s been one thing, I haven’t made videos in the last few weeks just because of all this Corona stuff. I feel like an ass putting out you know, like, hey, let’s talk about this fun thing of poker and then like, oh, sorry, your, your grandparents are dying, you know. So, I’ve just been sorry. And you’re recording me right now.

Brad: Let’s be, let’s be fair, though, though, Veronica, like, there are people I think that get are so overwhelmed by the stress and the anxiety that having some distraction or release I think is probably a good thing.

Veronica: I agree with you. Yeah, I just I started doing this show or my show, basically, because I was getting a little depressed living out here. I feel like I don’t have a lot of friends because I moved to the, I moved to the bay like a year and a half ago, but I was in Sacramento, which I love Sacramento. It’s such a hidden gem.

Brad: How did you get to Sacramento? What led you to that area?

Veronica: I moved there because I was married before and my ex-husband was a pilot in the military. And he was flying out of Beale. He was flying those YouTube planes where they have to wear a spacesuit and they go above that atmosphere. It’s kind of cool.

Brad: Oh, wow.

Veronica: But, yeah, so I moved there. And I feel like that was the best move of my life. That was, I got to Sacramento and it felt like it was for the for the first time in my life, I felt like I was at home. And the people there are amazing and warm and downtown is very walkable. And I often would go places by myself and just talk to strangers. And I feel like the bay, everyone’s like, super busy. And everyone’s trying to be a CEO, you know. So

Brad: I get the same feeling in LA, whereas, like, everybody seems more anonymous in LA. They’re just kind of in their own world. Like, me and some friends went to Venice Beach, and we were playing volleyball. And like, you know, the ball kicks away and roll, rolls away and like, they’re just like, they just stop and watch it pass, like they don’t even nobody bends over to pick it up and like to interact. It’s like everybody just kind of in their own little

Veronica: That’s so funny that you say that. I stayed in Venice Beach. When I went to LA. I went I think a couple years ago just to like to take a weekend by myself. And I remember, I like succulents. I have a potted succulent garden. And I remember this guy had amazing succulents, and he was standing in front of, or standing in his front yard and I was like, wow, I think your garden is amazing. I love succulents, and he literally just stared at me. And didn’t respond. I was like, okay, fuck you. I just walked away. And then I was like, no one wants to be talked to out here. They’re just like,

Brad: What is this person talking to me for? I don’t know how to interact with somebody. It’s

Veronica: Is this person from North Cal? Ois this human?

Brad: Like what’s the deal?

Veronica: Yeah.

Brad: So, you’re in Sacramento? I, we do have to touch on senior Postle and that whole debacle. Let’s

Veronica: Yeah.

Brad: How did you get involved with stones casino like, what, what did that, was that just your local casino?

Veronica: Yeah, so they opened up I think like, a couple years before the livestream started. And I would play there. It was actually, it’s actually a really nice room. I don’t know if you’ve ever played at Stones. It’s one of the few casinos that has like a full restaurant, really good restaurant inside of it. And you can get really good food 24 hours a day, like typically, if you’re at a casino you can get like a, you know, box sandwich or something. But they have I don’t know, it was just like a nice sized room. It’s not too big, not too small. Really nice tables, great staff. And I was, I, you know, I started getting to know the local poker players. And this guy, Roger Bailey decided to start the live stream. He sold it sold it as in like, they, they not monetary wise, but he sold the idea to Stones. And they went with it.

Brad: And it’s just a promotional tool, basically.

Veronica: Yeah, he, I think he was running like a Poker Tour at the time that didn’t, that didn’t do well. But, I talked to him. And I said, like, look, I used to have a radio show. I used to host pageants. I’m really good on the microphone. I know poker. I don’t know, I’m not a professional, but get a professional poker player in the booth with me. And it’ll be great. I’ll keep them lightly entertained. And then we can have some poker analysis. And that’s how it all started. I ended up convincing one of my best friends, Jake Rosenstiel to do the show with me. And Roger said yeah, and we were the first to commentary crew for like, it felt like a year and a half. But I think they started bringing people in after like six or eight months.

Brad: It was like a rotating crew of commentators.

Veronica: Yeah, I mean, we all, we switched it up eventually with everyone but like him and I were the main duo. And we did all the big cash games, which were my favorite. I loved watching the high stakes cash games, I would just, I could watch live at the bike like a 25/50 game like all day. I love it.

Brad: Yeah, it’s there’s something about high stakes poker and guys performing at a super high level. That’s just you know, it’s, it’s great TV, like

Veronica: It’s like watching Olympic athletes. You know, it’s, it’s, they’re thinking at such a higher level about the game, not that they’re smarter than any of us but they’re putting in so much work into their craft. And it’s, it’s almost like watching a ballerina, professional ballerina move like that. They’re flawless in a lot of their strategic thought processes and moves and, and we’re like trying to think about what they’re thinking or perceived, what their opponent’s perceived range, or I don’t know, it’s just like all, it’s just so it’s so much more wonderful. Like, one-three cash games are just kind of like, you know, a little messy. Sometimes you, you know, it’s, it’s just like, okay, well, I don’t know why they did that. But you know what, let’s go. And so, it’s a little bit more of a party, but I really enjoyed watching the 25/50 players play.

Brad: What’s cool is it works across a spectrum of observers to like, for me, who’s been a professional for 16 years, like, it’s exciting to me seeing the elite guys do things that, you know, very few people are going to notice, right? It’s like, when they do something that’s just so absurd. And above the rim, that like, almost nobody notices, but like, as a pro, I’m watching and I’m like, God damn, that was good. Like, that is just, I tip my hat. And like, maybe even people don’t even realize how good it was. But it’s just like, wow, you know, some, some folks come to mind, specifically that I, that I think about Garrett, Garrett obviously makes him super above the rim plays. And I’ve played with Garrett a lot in real life

Veronica: I think Garret is everyone’s favorite.

Brad: But he’s good TV, right? Like he he’s very aggressive, he drives the game. And this is sort of his personality, even like, before the camera came on, I would, I would go out on a limb and say that he’s pretty much the same player, whether the lights are on or off. But just some of the ways that he thinks about poker and the way that he trusts his God, and his instinct in big spots is second to none. And that, to me, is kind of what separates Garrett. As far as watching him from my perspective.

Veronica: Yeah, I would agree. I just feel like if you’re, if you’re looking at the decision tree, in the, the run through the decision tree is so much cleaner, usually by Garrett versus, you know, the problem starts in the beginning, at lower stakes games.

Brad: Yeah, like, like, Garrett, Garrett is really great at discerning aggression, and also projecting out how his aggression is going to be perceived and how it’s going to work out. And there’s a lot of exploitative things that he does in his game that he implements that I think is, you know, he’s fearless. This is another thing, he just will pull the trigger 100%. And that is a player with, with those capabilities that you’re always on guard against in a live setting.

Veronica: So how much do you value exploitative play versus GTO as a professional? Now, I’m interviewing you.

Brad: So, for me there, there is no difference there. There are two sides of the same coin. Exploitative play is simply GTO with better information than you could input into the calculator. And to me like poker players, human, just human beings are predictable by nature, we’re not good at being random. And just knowing that about people like the only thing to do is try to come up with the most exploitive strategy that you can have against your opponents. Like that’s to me, it’s so counterproductive to try to implement something that’s number A, you can’t and B, doesn’t maximize your hourly rate just seems kind of absurd to me. So, I think getting, getting to the point, always play exploitative is my general wisdom.

Veronica: I think, I don’t know if you’ve heard of this body language expert. He has a YouTube channel called, He’s Derek van Schaik. And when you say people are not random, they’re very pattern oriented. And I think that’s why like FBI experts, you know, body language experts can pick up these patterns when people are lying or doing something deceitful, deceitful. So, I guess if you can pick up on those things, I’m sure there’s more beyond that. I’m not trying to say that’s all you’re looking at. But yeah, I mean, that’s, that’s really cool that you say that we’re, we’re very pattern oriented. I would, I would wholeheartedly agree.

Brad: If you look at there’s one of my favorite books is called, Rock Breaks Scissors, and it’s the, it’s just basically predicting human behavior. And that’s pretty much what the whole book is about. And it even dives into like Bernie Madoff’s books, his accounting and looking at it from you know, historically looking at it, the guys says that you can find patterns in the accounting that would have been able to predict that he was cooking the books, just because

Veronica: Rock Breaks Scissors?

Brad: Yeah, Rock Breaks Scissors. I think it’s by William Poundstone. And it’s just yeah, like, this is speaking of Garrett like this is 100% how he’s operating. He’s, he’s operating on an exploitative level. And like, poker is a game of information, and whoever is the best at collecting this information, discerning the information, and has the guts to pull the trigger. Those are the guys that are generally going to be able to succeed, or what

Veronica: Is that, is that the same thing as making the least mistakes?

Brad: Well, the thing is, like, see, it’s hard to even quantify a mistake, in my opinion.

Veronica: Right.

Brad: Because it’s, because like, okay, so one thing that I like to imagine is like, you know, you raise under the gun with aces, right? Well, you could also just shove pre with aces like this is going to be shoving pre under the gun, unopened is going to be a profitable play. Like, you can’t, nobody can dispute this, right?

Veronica: Like, well, I mean, if, depending on the amount of big blinds you have right?

Brad: No, I mean, if you ship a thousand, like, you’re going to win one and a half, like almost always, so that’s profitable. And if anybody calls, well, you can’t be a dog, right? So that’s going to be profitable, too. So, like, this is a profitable play. And, you know, the, the art comes in play, when it’s how do I maximize each of these spots? Like how do I maximize my top pair? How do I maximize my middle pair? What does that look like? Do I induce bluffs? Do I over, do I bluff too often against certain people to get them to over fold, so that they’re folding out 100% of their range in spots? Like, it’s all about just understanding people’s patterns. And like, if somebody is checking, and they’re super imbalanced as far as like, when they check, their check raising all of their value, okay, this is a guy, or this is a human being where you’re going to be able to triple off and when they get to the river, they’re not getting to the river with a strong hands like they should. So, they’re just folding too often. And it’s just thinking about people how they respond, how they react, the sizes that they use. And then of course, in a live setting, you also have body language, you have a lot of different inputs that you can use to make these decisions as well.

Veronica: Yeah, see, I feel like that level of play didn’t seem to exist in like the mid-2000s. And it feels a little abstract, because you’re going off of a lot of perception, which is difficult for me. Because I

Brad: It’s difficult for everybody.

Veronica: Yeah, I function very well in like, like clear lines drawn.

Brad: Right. Like just linear, linear progression. And like this is what people want in poker, right? They want a linear path that will lead them to being a crusher. The reason this doesn’t exist, as far as training goes is because it’s hard. Like there’s not any elegant systems that can allow a person to improve their deductive reasoning.

Veronica: Yeah, and I think like one of the hardest things in poker for me, and I think, for most people is that you can do the right thing, make all the best decisions in the decision tree and then still lose. And then you have this negative connotation attached to your good play. And then you could have completely played a hand like horseshit and win. And now you’re thinking, you’ve associated that, you know, horrible play to winning and then these bad patterns happen.

Brad: Yeah, it’s a deceptive, it’s a very deceptive game.

Veronica: Right. And that’s why I think it’s really important. Some of my most successful poker playing friends, they’re in group chats all the time, and they’re running hands by each other, and they’re getting feedback. I think you need feedback on your decisions. Or if you’re, if you’re okay, to just look at it, you know, get, give yourself feedback. But I think it’s always good to run it past people. I think the people who are so low drivers in poker, without group chats without friends, probably don’t do as well.

Brad: It’s very hard. And not only do you need people, you need high level thinking people,

Veronica: Right. Yes.

Brad: That will, that can push you that you can you know iron sharpens iron, you can push each other forward. And those, honestly, it’s hard to find. Those people are limited supply. There’s a lot of, you know, Dunning Kruger effect that comes into play where folks think they know a lot more than they actually know. And even like going back to somebody like Garrett, right? Or these people on live at the bike that played a super high level, they mess up too. And

Veronica: Yeah.

Brad: They make, they make mistakes, they make big mistakes. And another deceptive thing is somebody makes, somebody who’s a well-known pro makes a big mistake and people internalize what they did as being like, good, quote, unquote, and then try to apply it to their game and they just get smashed and like

Veronica: Yeah.

Brad: We’re, everybody’s operating like even the best players are, they’re operating typically, at a low degree of certainty, further decisions. And one of the things that separates those folks from everybody else, they accept that, they let the chips fall where they may in a session. And then they go back and analyze and say, okay, I made some assumptions here. Are these assumptions, right? How do I improve my thought process moving forward? Like it’s all this cycle of taking actions, observing the actions off the table, learning new information, implementing that and then just wash, rinse, repeat over and over and over? 

Veronica: Yeah, you’re, you’ve become a scientist at that point.

Brad: Yeah.

Veronica: Testing your hypothesis.

Brad: That’s how it is.

Veronica: I mean, there’s also a problem with, I think, too much out there. Too much information, too many coaches. And I would say a good amount of those coaches aren’t, oh, I’m going to get smacked for this. But I don’t think a lot of them are that good or should be coaching. And I think a lot of, you know, people will give someone money when they saw them win one tournament, which doesn’t mean anything. But yeah, it’s just like, it’s hard for people to find the right information about poker, because there’s a lot of bad shit out there. And I think really good, high-level poker players are hoarding good information. I know there, I am friends with a lot of the high stakes’ guys out here in San Jose. And I know they’re in a group chat. And they share information. But I guarantee you if some like 2/5 rag came up to them, and ask them a question, they wouldn’t tell them. You know, they wouldn’t give out all their information like that. They want their player pools to not be better, they don’t want the shit to rise.

Brad: I think, so, there is that in poker. I will say they’re, these like ivory towers that hoard knowledge and information. And then the flip side of that, too, is like if a 2/5 player comes to them, like, the question is, what value is this person giving me? If I’m going to invest my time and energy and do helping you navigate through your poker career, what are you giving back to me, right? Like this is a, it’s an incentive game. And the people that are in that group, well, they’re all providing value to one another, right? And time is in limited supply so, you want to maximize that time, and you don’t want to be explaining things, taking hours and hours explaining things to people. So, for me, it’s like it’s a maximizing value of their time, I would say, but you’re absolutely right. There are a lot of people who are full of shit in the poker coaching industry, that lead people down bad paths. It’s something that I see all the time. And like, as somebody who’s consistently creating stuff for people, it’s hard for me to even make, have a hard opinion, on a spot, much less tell somebody, this is what you should do every single time because like, this is not poker, this is about winning poker. It’s not like binary, where in this spot, you should always do this, because there are conditions that affect everything.

Veronica: So, I with that, I think that a lot of poker coaches should not necessarily be paid hourly, but take a percentage of like stake there, they should stake their student, and then take a percentage of their profit. And then you’ll see a lot of coaches who leave the system, because they aren’t winning poker players themselves. So, and then they wouldn’t be teaching any winning strategies. Or maybe the, that, this is what we think of poker as being this maybe some people think about it as being this stagnant thing, where it’s changed so much. And so, a player who might have been a great coach in 2006 is not, if they haven’t adjusted is not going to be a good coach now and so, yeah.

Brad: Here’s where I disagree. And I, like there, there are great coaching for profit situations out there that exists. Nick Howard, Poker Detox is one of them.

Veronica: Oh, yes, yes.

Brad: I spent,

Veronica: I like Nick.

Brad: I spent like three days with Nick over the last couple of weeks, and was kind of blown away by their internal process. But you also want to have a barrier to entry, right? Like, you want somebody to want poker coaching enough, that they’re willing to pay you for it. Because that gets that weeds out, just by the nature of that barrier to entry a lot of the pretenders who are looking for get rich quick, who are looking to soak up a lot of your time. And again, not really provide much in the way of value. So, like, there, I think there’s a place

Veronica: Maybe it needs to be a marriage of both. I think that a lot of people, it’s easy to just say here’s my money, like spend two hours with me and I want to go win.

Brad: Yeah.

Veronica: Not realizing it’s, you know, a long-term commitment.

Brad: This is, this is the first step right. This is the first tell, as far as the intentions of your poker coach. If they say, oh, yeah, two sessions, we’re going to crush it, right? Go find another poker coach. Like every single one of my students that come to me I’m like, look, this is a long-term gig and I’m going to provide, I’m going to give you a path. And as clear as I can, and we’re going to navigate this path, but the onus is on you to do the work. The onus is on you to implement what we’re talking about, like, I can’t make you. So, like, and even then, you know, nothing changes overnight. Everybody wants things much quicker than reality will dictate. So, it’s a long term, it’s a long-term commitment. And, you know, you really have to, as a coach, I have to love my students and root for them and, and genuinely feel good when they text me at 7:30 at night asking me questions, and I’m responding and trying to help them out. Whereas, you know, I’ve also, I’ve also had, you know, some, some, it’s weird to say, I guess DGAF would quantify them as knits who have bought one coaching session, right, and they get it, they get integrated in the Skype group, I buy into their story. And then they ask questions for like six months or a year, without ever buying another poker coaching such session, right? Like, these are things that I think maybe people don’t see from the coach’s perspective. But for me, it’s like, if you’re going to invest in me, you get my time, you get my energy, I’m going to do the absolute best that I can to ensure you succeed. Sometimes it means telling people that I don’t think you’re ever going to succeed, which is not a great conversation to have, but also something that as I just feel obligated to tell people to save them potential suffering, just as responsibility.

Veronica: So, I’m curious, what would be your favorite kind of students? Like, is it someone who isn’t as good initially that you can, not mold? I guess, you can have more effect on all and although, although the graph may have them a lot lower in abilities initially, but then they can reach a lot higher of a peak, versus someone who’s pretty good and set a lot in their ways. And, and you’re influencing them minimally like which, what kind of student do you prefer, like the one that takes a lot more effort initially, or

Brad: So ideally, my favorite student would be anybody I see myself in. That’s early on in their career, somebody that’s obsessed, somebody that’s thinking outside the box, somebody that has some punt in their game, that is more on the degenerate side, as far as aggression levels, and also somebody that, that has a high level of logic. These are my favorite people to coach because they want it, right? They want it and they absorb the information, they think critically about it. They don’t just want a linear path to success. They accept that, yeah, I got to improve my deductive reasoning. And when you make an impact on those folks, like that’s the most satisfying for me, like students have to be coachable. If they’re not coachable, it’s just, I don’t even what’s the point? Like it’s just like banging your head into a wall, and there’s no benefit for either party.

Veronica: Yeah, that’s interesting that you say obsessed. Like, I often feel that I’m obsessed in my work. And I often I’m in the office, like, are they paying me to do this, my brain is really enjoying this and I do get lightly. I can’t spend too much time on one thing, because I have so many projects going on, but I’ll allow a percentage of my time for a little bit of obsession. So, and I it frustrates me if my coworkers don’t have that, most of them do. But when people lack curiosity, I think in any field, lack light obsession, lack that fire in their belly, it’s, it’s very frustrating when, when there’s no critical thinking involved.

Brad: These are the people that resonate with me. I do a thing once a week called the Poker Power Hour, we review hands, we review some live play. The folks will send in a video and I’ll review, give them feedback on the video as well. And last week, we were doing vision and goal setting and I was just asking people about, you know, what are they, what are their expectations in poker? What are you looking to accomplish? And shout out to a girl or a girl. Her name is doc. And she like, she was asking so many questions. I spent 25 minutes just speaking with her specifically. And she’s taking notes the whole time, right? I can see her in the Zoom room taking notes. And then these dudes are next, and I spend maybe five or 10 minutes on each of them. And they have, there’s no clarity really, meant very minimal clarity. And then I’m like, hey, Doc, let’s show me your notebook. Like let’s show these people your notebook because I have a feeling that it’s going to, going to be, you know, it’s going to be important for them to see. And like, her notebook is filled with just like wall to wall notes like halfway full. And I’m like, guys, this is obsession, right? Like this is a person who’s doing whatever it takes that just doesn’t want the answer spoon fed to her. And given the right instruction. That’s something you can work with. That’s somebody that you can say you can project out and say, okay, they’re going to be the 3% of people that succeed. I don’t want to work with somebody in the bottom 97% that I feel has no, have no chance of ever being successful at this game. I want to work with those folks who are obsessed that I see myself in that I can say, okay, poker might actually be a path for you to pursue, and could have a lot of positive benefits in your life.

Veronica: Yeah, that sounds, I think that resonates with almost all professions. I think there are people that I work with, who I work with that are that want to be spoon fed. And I just, it irks me.

Brad: Yeah, like they, you know, that’s when you just say, I don’t think this is a good fit for coaching. You know, this is not

Veronica: Yeah.

Brad: Because I mean, they’re, anyway, I feel like I’m speaking a lot about myself in this.

Veronica: It’s okay. I’m interviewing you, this is my show.

Brad: What happened? I got, I got turned around.

Veronica: See, you’re passionate. That’s good.

Brad: Well, I am because this is one of the reasons why, you know, I genuinely believe that like your vibe, attracts your tribe. And this is a reason why I like Nick Howard so much is that Nick genuinely cares about people. Nick genuinely cares about helping people be successful in this game. And that’s noble, there’s honor in that. And for me, there’s a lot of suffering in poker, like, most successful poker players have a lot of empathy by nature. And so, I see the suffering, and I see people suffering. And, you know, if, if we can do our part to help ease that in our way, then this is a big win for us. So yeah, that’s a, I am passionate about that, because it’s fulfilment. It’s happiness. It’s what drives me, as a poker content creator. Like it, it’s more profitable for me to cut the cord in this recording, and just grind out in a hole all day long.

Veronica: So, I’m curious what you, since I’m interviewing you, this is my show now.

Brad: I’ve been hijacked.

Veronica: I’ve been, yeah, I’ve hijacked it. I’m curious what your thoughts are on the poker economy in general. And with everyone getting better, and people having less and less of an edge on their opponents. And, you know, no more online poker. I don’t know what I like here, you can’t get a bigger game than like 10/25 typically, and sometimes they they’ll just play like a 5/10 with a $20 straddle. It’s a deep stack. It’s not like you can, you get like 50, 100 games spread, and these people are making massive amounts of money. I feel like it’s a little kept. What I don’t know, I just feel like the poker economy is just like starting to tighten around people’s necks a little bit. I don’t, like Andrew, my best friend is trying to help people get out of poker. What do you think?

Brad: I’m not sure. I know, like, in most 5/10 games across the country, live poker specifically is pretty much always going to be soft. I think that that is a game where it takes people a lot longer to improve simply because there’s not as much data and there’s not as much analysis, you can’t see your graph as far as what you’re doing and dive in deeply as to what exactly your leaks are. So, I think the live poker is much slower to adapt to live players or takes a lot longer to improve. And I think that at a 5/10 game or a 5/10/20 game you can grind out, a decent player is going to be able to grind out 100 to maybe 150 an hour. And that’s, that’s an ok living. Like you can you can buy groceries, making 120 to 150 an hour. And I’m very grateful, by the way for the influx of you know, the quote, unquote, this is where I get smashed on Twitter, by the way. The GTO revolution of people who are so convinced that every decision they make is really great. When the reality is it’s probably not so great. But that feeling of false security causes people to think they’re really great and not be so good. And so, the implementation aspect of GTO I think has created a situation where regs just aren’t, they’re not improving on a regular basis. Like they’re not getting, they’re not as good as they should be.

Veronica: You mean basically because they are perfect GTO bots, but they haven’t accounted for all of the exploitation involved in the game that is essential.

Brad: No, they are

Veronica: Is that what you’re saying?

Brad: They believe they’re perfect GTO bots. And the reality is, they’re absolutely nowhere close to a perfect GTO bot. And they have, they feel certain about their decisions. And when you’re, when you’re certain about something, you don’t go back and think critically about it. You don’t go back and analyze and say, did I do something wrong here? You just accept it, you say, okay, I played great. And then you move on with your life, right? So, it hinders the learning process. And going all the way back to what I said, poker is a game of people, people are predictable. If you’re thinking about you, if your paradigm is, this is what I’m going to do in all these spots, I’m going to memorize this, and I’m going to do X, Y, Z, you’re completely ignoring the largest part of the equation, that there’s another human being on the line there who’s thinking.

Veronica: Right, I think that also, this taps into someone’s ego.

Brad: Yeah, it’s great.

Veronica: Which is you know, in any, in any, in any field, if someone has so much of an ego, that they’re so sure of themselves, they’re, they have actually a lot of leaks, because they, they have no perception, self-perception of what they might be doing wrong. Whereas if you’re critically thinking through things and thinking, well, I don’t know, 100% if this is the right decision, I think mostly it is, I’ll go with this and then revisit it. Yeah, I mean, it’s I think I, I feel like this is a parallel to life. You know, everything that you’re talking to me about poker is the same in tech. And it’s probably the same in every other field, or any field that requires any sort of critical thinking.

Brad: Yeah, it’s this weird balance that I’ve always found kind of ironic that you need assurance that you’re doing the right thing, you need assurance that your strategy is sound, and you’re doing well. But you also kind of need to be humble enough to analyze that strategy and analyze your assumptions to make sure there’s no cracks.

Veronica: Right. I mean, when, when I’m working, I’m always, I tried to do things in the most efficient, effective way that will be utilized in a, I guess, like, in an efficient way. But I’m never 100% certain that what I’m doing is the best way of doing it. But I think it’s the best way for now. And I have to be open to updating that. And it frustrates me when other people, you know, have this. They’re either like a yes or no, like we can or we can’t do that. Well, we might be able to do. We might be able to build that or code that so

Brad: Yes. They think about it in black and white binary terms, when it’s just not the reality, like life would be so easy if everything was just binary, but it’s just

Veronica: Yeah, and being absolute about everything, it frustrates me. I guess, like I’ve been told by a senior analyst that I work with that I’m too like always up in the air like, well, I don’t know, well, maybe well, we could. And he’s like, I want you to be more sure. I’m like, well, I’m, I, I’m not going to take a stand on something if I know, there’s like four ways of doing it. And I, I’m not 100% sure which one’s the best one and which one is the most time efficient, and what the end users you know, experience will be with what I do.

Brad: This, it’s another, this another tell of poker coaches when they’re absolutely certain, and they give you certainties. In an uncertain world, right? Like this is, back when my Skype group was ramming and jamming, and I would wake up every day to like 250 messages. There’s a lot of hand histories and a lot of analysis and some spots. I just, I don’t know, I say like, I don’t know, I don’t know what’s good here. Like, let’s investigate it and see if we can come to any sort of logical conclusion. But like, I don’t know, right. And that’s something that I’ve always embraced when discussing poker strategy with my students is giving them the freedom to say, I don’t know, and that’s okay. You don’t need to know everything. It’s in that, in that space of not knowing that leads you to knowing a little better and improving a little more on a day to day basis. And that’s just how I’ve always thought about poker. And this is, again, going back to the GTO revolution, all these training sites and giving these concrete absolute answers. It just never, it’s never sat with me well, and it also creates the suffering in the poker community that I hate and I’m very much against and yes, it’s tough. Long story short, you want to make it in poker. It’s hard as hell. And like, there’s no shortcut, right? There’s no linear path. Be obsessed and ask the questions.

Veronica: Yeah, obsession. That’s the, that’s the best thing to have. It saddens me when people don’t have that with anything.

Brad: Exactly.

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Brad: Let’s go back. Okay, Postle. Let’s talk about Postle.

Veronica: We took quite a detour.

Brad: Yeah, we were out in the weeds there for a little while. But tell me about Postle, you’re in Sacramento. You’re doing the stream. This dude comes on like I’m guessing he was a regular?

Veronica: Yeah, so he was living in Sac. He was a regular in the room. Professional poker player. Friends of mine played with him said he was like a breakeven player losing 5/10. He was okay. And he was just like the super nice guy, liked to party, liked to you know, big tipper. He’d buy rounds. He was, you know, just like a really fun guy. And I remember, I think it was just insane to me, Justin or somebody. Oh, Frank. It was Frank. Frank was like you really need to get Mike in your game. Mike is

Brad: Who is Frank?

Veronica: So, Frank, if anyone ever watched Veronica and Friends, there were four of us who are consistent in the game. And it was Alicia. She always sat on my left and Frank always sat on my right. And Mike Postle always sat on Frank’s right. And it was the four of us always. And we’d bring wine, we’d always hang out. We’d have food before, we’d go bowling after. And so, Frank was like, you really need to get Mike in the game. And it was always Frank and Alicia with me initially. We really enjoyed Frank. Frank was, you know, businessman who had a lot of money who wanted to have a fun time. Alicia also, she owns a business. And poker for her is just an outlet.

Brad: What’s Postle, one of the people like going out to bowling? One of the people hanging out?

Veronica: Yes, yeah. And so, we got Postle in quite early, I think like, like six months in, he started becoming a fix in my game. And so, the four of us we would actually, you know, sometimes not hang out outside of Stones, but like we’d meet for a meal before and stuff. And pasta was just a fun time. And he started cheating in my game. So that

Brad: Like on stream that was the, that was when it started?

Veronica: That’s when it started. Although I believe you know, he had set things up prior to that, but probably wasn’t able to pull the trigger. And my game was a perfect place to start it. My game was loud and wild and the speediest 1/3 game you’ve ever played in, and as a stack Match Game, so it got really big. And no one was noticing that he was looking at his crotch. No one was noticing, I mean, we were just, we were oblivious to it. I know Alicia used to say like, get off your phone Mike, like, get involved. And he’d like, huh, you know, and but he,

Brad: How was he before? Before the crotch looking and all that stuff? Just in the game, he was

Veronica: Yeah, so

Brad: Attentive?

Veronica: Yeah. So, before that, yeah, he was a lot more, I would say into the conversation. He wouldn’t wear a hat sometimes. He was, he had his phone on the rail of the of the poker table like the rest of us had when we were on our phones, because we’re all on our phones. He was the only one putting it into his crotch. And he was a lot more social. I actually thought by December, so he started cheating in my game, I think in July of ‘18. I thought by December he was cheating and Bart Hansen and I were having a, Bart Hansen’s a good friend of mine. We were having like some back and forth discussions about it. And Bart is the one who had me go to Justin. And he was like, you know, they’ll, they’ll probably investigate it, and we can clear things up. And then we can know for sure that nothing’s happening.

Brad: Oh Bart. Oh Bart, so naive.

Veronica: Well, I mean, Bart thought, thought there was something going on.

Brad: Why didn’t Bart say anything?

Veronica: I think Bart may have asked Justin how his security is. I also think Bart has a company and a reputation. And I think that he was not wanting to become like, if you look at what happened to me, Bart didn’t want that. Bart has a business to run. And students I believe. And so, he didn’t want to get involved in the middle of that. He, he takes very strategic steps. Whereas I’m just like, in a bull in a china shop. I just break everything and go.

Brad: Well, that 100% commendable for you. And, you know, I do understand that there are business ramifications. If you have a certainty, though. And people are still going to the game. I mean, it seems like

Veronica: Well, I was, I mean, when I posted the week before it was I did commentary and Berkey was in the game and Christian Soto, I was furious. It, it took me, you know, for a week that thing was simmering in my mind. I couldn’t. I think I would have come up publicly sooner. But because I had moved away. And I wasn’t doing commentary as often. That was the game, that was supposed to be my game. But I gave it to my friend Anthony because I was like, I need to stop doing Veronica and Friends. I no longer want this party in my life. I just ,I’m you know, yeah, you’re learning to like, wake up from all this. And so that was the very last time. I think had I not done commentary, I wouldn’t have come up with it because I wasn’t seeing it enough. But I, I just remember, because I went to Justin in March. And then September, I go in the booth. And I’m like, God dammit, this fucking guy is cheating. And I was never so sure as I was in that game. And then when Justin came in the booth after, I was like, he’s completely incompetent. Nothing is ever going to get done. Art, the general manager of Stones, he doesn’t listen to me. Anytime I’ve talked to him about Justin, he’s like, oh, Veronica, you’re adorable. Sorry. You know, like he, he trusted Justin, like a son. And I still think Art from gossip. I’ve heard Art still thinks that Justin had no involvement which blows my fucking mind.

Brad: It’s cognitive dissonance. Just

Veronica: Yeah. And I think Art doesn’t understand poker.

Brad: Yeah. Cognitive dissonance, willful, willful ignorance. Do you have any insight? Since you know, you were kind of part of Postle’s crew there, like he was a part of your crew. So, like, why? What’s the incentive? What’s the motivation to run this scam on your friends?

Veronica: So, that’s a lot to unpack. I think Postle and I are around the same age. And we’ve watched poker change. I have a very, you know, successful career outside of poker that I’ve, I’ve enjoyed, and I’ve realized where I stand with poker, and it’s not something that I’m looking to do professionally. But Mike, state a poker player and although he may have had some success, he was any other player of the year. You know, he won a few poker tournament during that series, and he became Player of the Year with points. He may have found some success, but I think the game passed him by and I think like, he’s a little bit of a, I think he believes, I think he believes that he’s, that he’s that good. I think that he found an edge, he thought he found an edge. And he used it. And I think the game passed him by and he couldn’t adjust. And this is, this was his way of keeping up. I honestly think that he believes that he’s that good at poker. I think he’s wrapped up in this. I feel like this is a good psychological study. I’m, I just want to hear him talk. Going back a little bit. Speaking of how he logically thinks about things or talks. When I would speak with him, I never heard, and I’ve spoken about hands with people who just play 1/3 and with like, 25/50 players. And although 25/50 players might have a more, you know, thorough thought process with what they’re doing a cleaner description. All of us when we’re going through a hand, we can talk about why we’ve made those decisions, whether they’re right or wrong, we still have a thought process through it. Mike was just like completely, probably, probably one of the least intelligent, hurt people I’ve heard talk about poker. And just in general talking to him, I, I he didn’t strike me as anything anywhere near average, maybe on like a really good day. And it was, it was that that there was like such a difference between him and his play and how perfect his play was and how he could never explain himself. And I, even some of my close friends who play high stakes, they lose in so many of those spots. They’re calling sometimes on the river, he never called. And so, I noticed, and people are like, well, you’re not that good at poker. Like how did you notice and I’m like, it’s not that I’m, I don’t have to be good at poker here. I understand poker. But I understand patterns. And his pattern was such an outlier. And if you do any sort of, you know, statistical analysis on anything, an outlier is like a random occurrence. It doesn’t happen all the time. But his outlier was constant. And so, it skewed the graph, it didn’t make sense.

Brad: Right.

Veronica: But what I saw his patterns were nothing I’ve ever seen before. And the only thing that it could be was cheating.

Brad: So just looking at like just a basic pot odds model that most people learn in their first month of poker, if somebody bets half the pot on the river, so there’s $100 in the middle, somebody bets 50. You call when you know you’re getting three to one, right? So, you need to, you need to win the hand more than 25% of the time, which means that like, you’re going to lose very, very often, right? Like you lose more than you win. And when somebody is never wrong. This is pretty clear. Something weird is happening here, like you should be losing often. And when you’re just constantly playing perfect like this, this is not right.

Veronica: I feel like it doesn’t even need to be that sophisticated. There are clearly things that he did that are not

Brad: Justifiable.

Veronica: Exactly. Like the lack of calling on the river is so huge, that people who don’t play poker don’t recognize. Also, when you’re looking at spots, like him having ace high and his opponents, or he would just, he would jam. Or like, I think he had like a nine high. And his opponents had like ace king, ace queen or something. And they missed and then he was just like jamming with air on the river. And he knew they had to fold. It was, there’s like so many spots that he, he did that stuff. And I used to, I was like watching like, what the fuck is he doing? And, and I was always second guessing myself because I’m not a professional poker player. And I was like, well, maybe this is a thing, like this doesn’t seem like it’s a thing. And there were times where I was just so confused with his play. And then I was told by Justin like, well, you don’t really understand Mike Postle’s poker. You don’t understand poker that well, like, everyone’s jealous of Mike and, you know, just,

Brad: This is a really weird thing for somebody to say who’s in charge of security and securing the games. Like it’s a weird stance to not say, I get where you’re coming from. Let me look at it. Let me investigate. Let me, let me ask some opinions from people who, you know, are professionals and do play high stakes and get their thoughts like it’s not complicated the process that needed to happen,

Veronica: Right. So, the when I went to Justin saying that there are rumors going around, I think that Mike might be cheating. There’s something going on, I honestly thought that there was going to be an objective reaction of oh, my goodness, let’s get him out of the game. Let’s look into this. Let’s figure out what’s going on. But it was like, everyone’s so jealous of it. I felt like I was talking to a 14-year-old. Everyone’s so jealous of Mike. He uses the Martin Gale strategy. And he used to have these toothpicks. And he had this toothpick and he was doing this and, and telling me like, you don’t know Mike’s poker, like people don’t understand Mike. You don’t understand poker Veronica.

Brad: He’s actually right. People don’t, didn’t understand what he was doing, because it made no fucking sense.

Veronica: And yeah, he was like, 100%, zero chance that there’s any cheating going on. Zero. And if there’s cheating, I’m going to quit my job. And I was just like,

Brad: Has he quit?

Veronica: Yeah, and this is, this is frustrating, because when people who don’t understand data are put in charge of situations of, of like, an organization or a game or something. And then when something is skewed, they can’t recognize it. And it’s extremely frustrating, because these types of people should never move into a position where they’re making decisions, especially involving a lot of people’s money. I think like, organizations who didn’t respond quickly to Corona, who are like, oh, this whole thing’s overblown, we’re just going to keep coming to work. And then everyone gets sick. That’s, you know, I, like irks me when people are in positions of power, positions to make decisions for other people, and don’t understand data. And I tried to be a completely data driven decision maker like I, I wasn’t panicking with this whole Corona stuff. But I was looking at the World Health Organization dashboard every day. It looked exponential to me, it looked like we were fucking going to be in deep shit. And then people I worked with were like, oh, this is everyone’s overreacting, you need to go to restaurants and support them. Anyway, don’t get me started. So, Justin’s one of these people who I believe was in charge of a really big game, really big live stream, and was unable to recognize when things were wrong if he wasn’t involved. So, he’s completely incompetent, if he was involved. If he was involved, which I think he was, and I’m starting to think Taylor was involved, but if he was involved, then, then I mean, then then his reaction makes sense.

Brad: I think, I mean, obviously, the DOJ is on it right now, right? Is that who’s investigating?

Veronica: Yeah.

Brad: Just look at the money, trace the money. Like

Veronica: The DOJ is not interested unless it’s two people cheating at a table. The DOJ is interested with

Brad: Well, you know, what I’m saying is if Postle’s taking this, this 400k and he has a partner, he’s obviously sending this partner money and this partner is going to be making deposits and there’s a trail right?

Veronica: Yeah, so I’ve spoken to them twice. They’re not interested. I don’t know what you want me to say. I don’t want to get in trouble. But they’re really unable to recognize that there was cheating. They said the data is not a smoking gun. He’s going to, Mike Postle’s going to just fuckin love hearing this. They want to know if he was cheating with another player at the table. That’s what they want. And I was like, well, no, he was cheating with someone who worked there. And they’re like, that’s not what we’re looking for.

Brad: Yeah.

Veronica: Go get, I’m going to get, I’m going to get angry. I’m seriously I think there’s just such, the ball was fucking dropped so hard on this one. And every person’s reaction through this whole chain of events has been so fucking shitty it makes me angry. And I’m sorry for swearing that the general manager of Stones didn’t listen to anyone. Wholeheartedly trusted Justin. He could have, if he would have been open to listening to people and had some oversight over Justin or had someone who knew poker to have oversight over Justin. Justin had no oversight. There was an IT director at Stones who was doing overseeing the tech part of Stones. Justin got him out of there. Justin didn’t want him there. Justin wanted to be the one-man organization, which is why I think he was involved. Why wouldn’t you want someone to take some of the, the, you know, work off of your shoulders? You are a tournament director, you’re running a live stream, why not have a guy who is tech savvy, who’s the head of IT for stones and have him run the tech portion so you don’t have to? No. Justin wanted to oversee it all.

 

Brad: On, you know, I totally get it.

Veronica: I’m sorry I got fibered up.

Brad: No, no. Yeah, I get it. Right. Like, I know why. There’s the anger there because we want justice. We want justice for what happened because it, it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.

Veronica: And all the people who play poker in that casino got robbed.

Brad: Yeah, they got straight

Veronica: On live stream.

Brad: They got straight up stolen.

Veronica: And all Stones does is just cover everything up. I’m pretty sure they are going to do their best to make it look like they had no involvement. And, and, you know, the rest of us have to suffer. It’s always, it’s always the average Joe that’s suffering, when, when this type of thing happens.

Brad: At this point is like they have no incentive to tell the truth, right.

Veronica: They don’t.

Brad: They have no incentive, because if they do, then they just lose, automatically lose this massive lawsuit against them. Postle obviously has no incentive to tell the truth, because he’s got, he’s compromised, in all sorts of ways.

Veronica: He’s mental, he’s representing himself, good for him. I hope he wins. He actually believes the story. And

Brad: Well there, who’s that, there’s, there’s a famous psychologist who came out with a bunch of books, I believe, Robin Williams character and awakenings was based on him. He wrote a book called, The Man Who Believed His Wife Was A Hat. And just thinking about Mike Postle, and how he could believe that like, he is this God like poker player, when he’s got access to all the whole cards. And like, obviously, I could train my nine-year-old to crush the game with all of the information, it could just like, he could just be completely a psychological case that

Veronica: That’s the thing. I’m just, I’m just in shock. So, I don’t know, if you, I’m sure everyone in the poker world was watching this whole thing unravel. But I don’t know if you saw some of his tweets, after I went public. And then some of the videos he gave that redeemed him air quotes. It’s very apparent that he doesn’t understand poker. iI’s very apparent that if he thinks that these are redemption type hands, that he doesn’t know anything about poker. And it’s very apparent that he doesn’t recognize he has, he’s so delusional in thinking that he’s so good, he doesn’t recognize. He doesn’t have the ability to self-reflect, or to see how other successful poker players are doing in comparison to him and he doesn’t fit that mold at all.

Brad: Yeah.

Veronica: I, he has no self-awareness. He’s just in his head. He’s delusional. The Wired magazine reporter was telling me that this is very common with these kinds of people who are, you know, are like lifelong cheaters or degenerates, like always trying to find an edge that’s not, you know, a level playing field edge and, and they’re typically in their own head. They’re delusional, and they think that they’re a lot better and brighter than they really are.

Brad: I mean, I wasn’t as consumed with Mike Postle, as a lot of people were. I saw one video of him when asked about his strategy, and he just said its diabolical. It’s chaotic. You can’t, you know, nobody can replicate it or something along those lines. And I thought,

Veronica: Yeah. We don’t talk like that,

Brad: Oh, this dude, this dude’s guilty. Okay. Now I don’t need to invest my life, watching all these live streams and all the breakdowns, because for me, it was like, I don’t need to listen to what this guy says. He’s not going to say anything valuable. I did, unfortunately, listen to the madness out interview, which was

Veronica: Yeah, and like, the thing is, he doesn’t even recognize how poker has become so much more sophisticated, and a math based game, you know, with probabilities. And he’s talking the way, I guess we used to talk in like 2005, 2006. You know that

Brad: I mean, you’re giving them too much credit. Right? You’re giving them too much credit. Nobody, no winning player talk like that in 2005 or 2006. Or at any point in my poker career. No winning poker player has described their strategy as diabolical without being to pinpoint any, any logic, break down any thought process to what they were doing. Like this is never existed in poker.

Veronica: And his strategy was like, you know, my, I’m just the greatest poker player in the world. And I’m just going to, I’m just going to say it. It’s like, literally not even the best poker players in the world would ever say that. They would just talk about their strategy.

Brad: Because you can’t quantify it. Like it’s not even a thing.

Veronica: So, it’s funny because I get people messaging me who have been in contact with him and telling me things that he said. He actually in his mind believes that I have so much power, that the only reason he’s being accused of this is because I’m swaying people. And his whole role in life now has been shifted towards vilifying me. And apparently, he’s coming out with a video that’s going to show how badly I play. And I’m like, well, great, you know, that’s fantastic. Like people will look at it and say, well, this is how not to play. Wait, like, what are you trying to accomplish? But he, he actually thinks that, let’s say I accused you of cheating. And let’s say I showed some videos and then people looked into it. And they would be like, you know what? He’s actually not cheating. Brad’s not cheating. We’re this is why he’s not cheating. Like, look, he’s calling in certain spots. Everything’s like very basic, speaks for itself. He’s not cheating. And then if they interview you, you’d be able to talk about your hands. And, and like Mike doesn’t get that. Mike doesn’t get that. Yes, I may have had people big name poker pros, a, you know, retweet me and then look into it. But had he not been cheating, none of this would have gone anywhere. This is like he actually thinks that I have some sort of power to sway people. And like, it’s just delusional thinking.

Brad: The irony is that your voice got squelched in for a long time, over a long period of time when you were, were speaking out about it. Like you didn’t get, you didn’t have any power to do anything about the situation, right? And that’s why it went on for as long as it ended up going on.

Veronica: Yeah. And yeah, the response that I received, mostly, I guess, I guess, like a lot of people. I don’t know why people thought I should have like, talked to him about it first or

Brad: Postle?

Veronica: Yeah, I had a lot of his friends say, why don’t you talk to him? I’m like, what do you think the outcome would be if I talked to him and he is cheating? Oh, yeah. Veronica. Yeah, I’m cheating. Yeah, you caught me. Like, literally, there’s no outcome where anything, anything good comes of it. If I go up to him and tell him he’s cheating. And he you know, what’s funny is he told Joey Ingram that he didn’t know anything about any of these complaints against him. Apparently, like more, more than a few people talk to Justin. But then he when he texts our group chat, he said that all of the, all the accusations were investigated, and no one found anything and blah, blah, blah. I mean, he’s just where was I going with this? I’m sorry, it I just get so fired up about this. Anyway, I think he’s delusional. I think we’re going to see this, I’m really, I, you know, I sound horrible when I say this, but I think he’s such a piece of shit so, I don’t care. I would love to go to court and just hear, just see this man fucking represent himself because his ego is so fucking big that he thinks he’s going to get away with this.

Brad: At the end of the day, I think it’s, it’s a situation where if he doesn’t get convicted, if there is no justice in this situation, at least he’s now completely, he is completely, is

Veronica: He was playing a great at the casino.

Brad: He should be excommunicated from the poker world.

Veronica: Sorry, I shouldn’t say he was he was playing. He went to Greyton which is north of San Francisco. I’m surprised that they let him even stay in the room. Apparently, he went in looked around and then left. But I would

Brad: Like how, like Postle alert just comes in, looks around and leaves?

Veronica: Think he was like seeing if there were any games and to see if he could sit down. He probably couldn’t pull the trigger.

Brad: I hope he gets Russ Hamilton. Just all across the poker community where you know, Russ Hamilton obviously, famously stole millions and millions of dollars to the players that you be WSOP Main Event winner who now has his like, his big sign banner underneath like the stairwells and like just everybody hates him. Hopefully at the least this is what happens to Postle, especially and I think that would be very painful for him too, especially with how egotistical he is, as far as poker ability goes. But in a perfect world he just gets completely smashed and Stones gets completely smashed, too, right?

Veronica: I mean, I think we should let him play and, and everyone can evaluate his abilities and see like, this 70% VPIP go down to fuckin under 10% like everyone tells me when they play against him off stream.

Brad: I mean, like, it’s just so obvious, right? Like, it’s almost no more proof is even necessary at this point, like the dude did it.

Veronica: Right.

Brad: In my mind, in my opinion coming from somebody who has been immersed with poker for 16 years. I could watch this stream, watch the little cut up of like seven hands. And it’s like, oh, yeah, he, he did it. Like, he he’s either the world’s best button clicker, who’s just making arbitrary decisions that somehow always work out or he’s cheating and outcomes razor the most, the most simple explanation is the likeliest. Well, he’s cheating. He knows what people have. This is how he’s clicking buttons and always making the correct place. So, like, for me, he’s guilty one way or the other. At this point, it’s does, is, do they, are they capable of proving it to a jury? And that I’m unsure of. I don’t know.

Veronica: Yeah, I think criminal is different than civil. I think civil criminal, you need to be beyond a reasonable doubt. And civil, I think, I think the standards are lower.

Brad: Right. I mean,

Veronica: I think

Brad: Civil, civil is obviously worth less, I would say, because he’s just going to like snap file bankruptcy. I mean,

Veronica: Well, I don’t think that that will matter. Even if he files bankruptcy, I think he’ll have to pay the rest of his life.

Brad: Yeah. But

Veronica: Just in the way.

Brad: It’s like a,

Veronica: You know, I don’t I’m not Mac and

Brad: Sure.

Veronica: I know, just with talking to him. There are some stipulations around bankruptcy.

Brad: Okay, well, you know more than me. I watched, Make Millions, the documentary about the guys stealing the pieces, like the million-dollar McDonald’s pieces on Netflix. And these guys, steal millions and millions of dollars. And for a white-collar crime. The lead dude who is doing it for 12 years and stole 10s and 10s of millions of dollars, ended up getting three years. And he pays like $452 a month for the rest of his life. Like, so yeah, he’ll, he’ll be paying money. It’ll be something like completely nominal. Because he’s just not going to have the money to pay. Like it’s just trying to, you know, get blood out of a stone, right?

Veronica: He’ll be, he’ll be living with his mom and everything will be in his mom’s name for the rest of his life.

Brad: Yeah. Stones Casino, I would say they’re, they’re scared, they should be a little more worried.

Veronica: So, stones is interesting, because of this whole Corona thing. It’s shut down. And hopefully they stay above water. If they if they go under, we can’t sue them.

Brad: Yeah, this story has so many angles and twists and turns. They get

Veronica: We’re fucked.

Brad: Oh man. Well, I guess we’ll, we’ll know more in the upcoming months or years as far as what happens with this story.

Veronica: And yeah, I think that Stones might be facing federal fraud charges if the feds feel like getting involved, if they feel that there’s enough evidence, just because they had obviously an employee involved either Taylor or Justin. Which I think it took me a while to come around with Taylor. I haven’t told him

Brad: Who specifically is Taylor?

Veronica: Taylor is a dealer at Stones. I believe he still works there. And he was the lead tech. The last while I think last year that he was there.

Brad: Yeah.

Veronica: And Taylor is the one who was gone I think for the summer along with Justin. And that’s when Mike didn’t cheat and didn’t play. He played in my game but lost. And that’s what confused me too. Because I was like, oh, he lost. Okay, maybe he’s not cheating. And he played normal then, played shitty. So,, I that’s what I remember that thinking that maybe he wasn’t cheating. And maybe I was wrong. I was constantly, constantly just insecure about my assessment of the situation.

Brad: Right.

Veronica: Because I was told that I didn’t know poker, and then I end that they have an auditing security company looking at stuff. I mean, I don’t even know what that means. We haven’t seen any evidence of that.

Brad: Joey made a tweet yesterday that he is releasing, or has released a video on where to play poker during the Age of Coronavirus, the things that are most important to players. And I replied, just care more about your players than you do about maximizing revenue. Nothing else matters beyond that. If you do that, all the other things fall into place. Give a shit about your customers, protect them, everything else, you know, whatever. Like if you do that everything else falls into place and it’s just, it’s a knowing what you said about, hearing what you said about Mike Postle, hearing him speak, I would say it seems pretty likely that he, somebody had to come to him with the idea as far as, this is something that is capable, would you be interested and I would go out on a further limb and say it’s somebody he had a personal relationship,

Veronica: Right

Brad: Beforehand that’s comfortable enough to ask somebody, hey, are you willing to cheat? Like, cause, that’s a pretty bold question.

Veronica: Yeah. So that often comes up. And Alicia and I talked about it that there’s no way Mike could have went up to Justin and said, hey, you have access to the live stream? Want to do something? He could have been eighty-six.

Brad: Yeah.

Veronica: But it had to be Justin, or one of the guys. And they were all very close. They were all good friends, which is also I think, a little unethical, I guess, without oversight, but,

Brad: It’s a conflict of interest at minimum.

Veronica: Yeah. Yeah. So, and I think there were some things I’ve heard that someone owed Mike money, and this was a way to pay them, pay him back. That’s another rumor I’ve heard.

Brad: That just doesn’t save you

Veronica: I owe you money. But I’ll send you the card. So, you can cheat and win.

Brad: Oh, that. Yeah, I guess that’s, that’s possible.

Veronica: Postle.

Brad: Postle-ble. Okay, I have, I have some more questions. And then we’ll get you out of here. Some rapid-fire, lightning round questions. And in reflection on this conversation, if anything has been said that you need to edit, or remove, let me know. And I will, because I definitely don’t want to do anything to compromise the, the chances of nailing this dude. If you could gift all poker players one book, what would it be, and why?

Veronica: I guess I’d go something simple, like Peter Singer, Ethics In The Real World. It was like one of the most inspirational books to me, I would say in the last three years, and I’ve probably given away a dozen copies of it. And it’s just more than just poker players. I think everybody, it makes you think about these gray areas within ethics, where you kind of start to become a critical thinker of some of these decisions where none of them are a good outcome, but you have to choose the best of the worst. Yeah, I think, I think, I think Peter Singer, he’s been, he’s been very life changing to me.

Brad: Can’t get a better testimonial than that. Especially giving them away yourself. Like this is a good indicator that this is a very valuable thing for you.

Veronica: Yeah. And it’s very edible. I would say, I think there’s like 89 topics that are, are a little edgy. And each topic is discussed over like two pages, two and a half. So, he doesn’t say this is how you should think about it. This is he just gives you all the variables and you then make up your own mind. And he is a vegan, which kind of drove me to try veganism for six months before I just couldn’t do it.

Brad: You, you bailed out on the veganism?

Veronica: I, I’ve never felt so crappy in my life. I gained weight and I, I had zero energy. I just can’t, I just can’t. I wish there was a better way. I tried to buy ethically raised meat. But I, I, if I wish they could raise meat in a lab. I don’t know a better way of doing this. I don’t want to support factory farming. I think it’s terrible. I would love to not have another animal killed for my meal. But I just don’t. I also was not willing to feel like shit and want to sleep all day because I had no energy and I was gaining weight.

Brad: Yeah, I think it’s, again, like just going back to critical thinking and like identifying, just looking at our identity and how we perceive ourselves and the things that we navigate to or that we believe as quote unquote, capital T truths. Those are always the things in my opinion that are worth investigating. And the fact that you tried it right, and there are people who, they just, they crushed veganism. They don’t like it. They can’t imagine participating but at least try something, investigate this about yourself, whatever it may be. And maybe it turns out like it did for you, and you didn’t have a great experience or maybe it is a great experience and you change something that you thought was concrete about yourself.

Veronica: Right. And I think I’m doing the best possible thing I can, given not being a vegan, is I buy meats in the most ethically raised ways, I guess. I, at Whole Foods, they have the scale one to five. I usually buy four, it’s hard to find five. Four is like, raised outdoors had the most natural life possible, and then killed humanely.

Brad: So yeah. If you could erect a billboard, every poker player is going to drive past on their way to the casino. What is it say?

Veronica: Jesus. I would, I would, I don’t know, like it, I don’t know. I do want to go fun and say like, you have to always like struggling as is mandatory.

Brad: We could go fuck, fuck Mike Postle. I think this is

Veronica: Yeah. I mean, I would say I would put up a billboard that says like people who believe Mike Postle didn’t cheat. Here are their names and numbers and by the name. Like, these are the people you want in your games. These are the fish in the world.

Brad: Yeah.

Veronica: These are life fish.

Brad: I could have an eruption, just thinking about the one interview, the one chance to put Postle on the spot and try to, try to nail him down just being completely squandered. That was very frustrating for me to listen to just as a poker player. Oh, it gets.

Veronica: So, I would say over time Madison has, has become someone that I really don’t like anymore. His tweets, and just his soft ass interview. I think just to get notoriety. He got that key interview. And then the interview was so disappointing. And just his whole personality and his responses to things like I just don’t like him as a person anymore. I used to think he was, you know, I wouldn’t say he was one of my heroes, but I really enjoyed watching him play. He was a personality for a while in poker. I just don’t like him anymore.

Brad: I mean, I remember listening to him at the main event final table when Danamon, he had tens, flat out the small blind do straight five, he led Danamon, shifted with like ace jack and, and possible and Madison lost and him like crying at the WSOP final table for busting out and like you feel empathy for the guy, right? You hear his story, you feel empathy, and to have been someone that has been cheated, like Mike has, and I’ve been cheated in poker. To have somebody that is potentially doing it and not come at them in a hard way, is just indescribably horrible to me.

Veronica: Do you think that he’s even got the mental bandwidth or capacity?

Brad: Absolutely. I’m not like,

Veronica: I don’t even think he’s literate. I think someone else is managing his tweets. I’m pretty sure he’s not literate.

Brad: I’m not. I can’t, I can’t read. I can’t let Metacell off the hook, one iota here because he said something in that Postle interview. Where Postle is like I’m known as a good guy, you know. I just give people you know, hundreds of dollars when they asked me to and yada, yada, yada. And Mike was like, well, isn’t that what you would do if you were cheating? Like he was like, this sort of like moment where Mike had some clarity about the situation like, oh, yeah, this makes sense if you are cheating. Like you, I’m going to go off like a rocket, but like, just hold people responsible. And you know, if they can defend their point, if they can defend their case, then great for them. If somebody wants to accuse me of cheating, do it. Let’s have it out. Let’s break it down.

Veronica: Would you go on every podcast if you were accused of cheating? If I accuse you of cheating, wouldn’t you go on every podcast, everyone invited you, you would go and you would discuss it. And you would obviously show that you weren’t?

Brad: I don’t know. See, this is a question that I can’t answer. The first thing I would do is hire a lawyer and ask their advice on how I need to proceed moving forward, knowing these lawsuits are coming at me, right? That’s the first thing, because I would like I would want to though, like I would want to discredit everything.

Veronica: So, before it gets to that point. Let’s just say I tweet about it. And a tweet doesn’t carry much weight without any evidence. I mean, wouldn’t you initially, but there would be no lawsuit? You know, because the lawsuit comes later when the evidence comes up. But there’s no evidence to support my claim if I accuse you of cheating. Wouldn’t you feel okay, defending your play going on a podcast?

Brad: For sure. The first thing I would do would be just, I would just completely dismiss it. I would be like, okay, that’s weird. Why would somebody say that? And then if it starts gaining traction, and people are like, it becomes like a thing, right? Where it’s necessary to say, okay, let’s defend what I’m doing. Then, yeah, we make it. I would get it. You know, I would talk to Berkey. I would talk to just all the high-level thinkers in poker and do my best to break down and explain the thought process behind each decision. Yeah, this is the route, this is a logical route to take, I would think.

Veronica: Right. You wouldn’t go on every, on a podcast and say you’re the greatest player in the world. I just need to get it off my chest. I’m the greatest player in the world. And there’s your stance. Anyway, yeah.

Brad: Anybody, there’s, anybody that thinks that about themselves is not the greatest player in the world.

Veronica: Right.

Brad: Like this is, I think, early on when we were talking about students and coaching and stuff, Mike Postle would be the absolute nut low worst student that I could ever have. Somebody that’s not coachable. Somebody that believes the bullshit stories that they’re telling themselves, like, this is not, this is not a good poker player. This is not somebody who’s successful

Veronica: Delusions of grandeur

Brad: Yeah, I mean, just completely, completely diluted. So okay, two more. What’s the project you’re working on right now that’s near and dear to your heart?

Veronica: I’m obsessed with parts of my job, not everything. But I love my job. And I’ve been building dashboards. I’m trying to get all of my end users to be data, data driven decision makers. And so, I’ve built a bunch of dashboards, and I’ve been modifying them for the data that they need. And I’m obsessed with it. And I, I’m fond of it. And I think about my dashboards. So that’s it. I’m, I’m stupid. Sorry. I think about the weirdest things like and yeah, my succulents I don’t know, I’m

Brad: We love what we love, right? And I think they

Veronica: I hate pie charts. I don’t, I, like my end users when they want pie charts. And like, what, what decision are you going to make based off of these 20 items in your pie chart that all look like the same size? You can hover over it and save it. Like it’s more visual, they like the visual. It’s like a break up of, you know, the different, like graphs in there. And

Brad: Right.

Veronica: So

Brad: I mean, the world should be making more data driven decisions and sort of like making this, this conversation come full circle as far as why I think live players are progressing at the same rate as online players. If Postle was doing what he did online, dude would be fried. Like there would be

Veronica: Right.

Brad: No question. He is dunzo.

Veronica: Right.

Brad: It took so long because it was live. And the data just wasn’t there.

Veronica: Yeah, and I think one thing, and I tweeted about this a few days ago, is like being data driven in all your decisions is a huge weight off your shoulders. You actually can just not go on default, but just kind of relax. And then, and then look at the data. And maybe think about any predictions that you might have based off of that data and, and then make your decision. You don’t have to have a set of values or beliefs that you’re having to do mental gymnastics to make the data work around. You know, it’s just like, it’s a light way of living. It’s just like a rational, you know, very, you know, evidence based way of thinking. And it’s just like, I think it’s, it’s, I don’t want to get into this topic, because it’s five hours. But like, there, there was a moment, there was a time in my life where I was religious, and I had to do so much work mentally to make things make sense. And I feel like now I’m at this place in my life, where it’s just like, so light, it feels like easy to just go off of data. Like when, when I was tweeting about Corona. I’m not saying I was the first person to tweet about Corona. But a lot of people were like, you’re overreacting, you know, you’re just trying to make people scared. And I’m like, I’m literally just responding to the data that’s out there. And that’s it. And it’s not looking good for us. Like, they’re, they locked down a city of 13 million people and sprayed it with, you know, Lysol or not Lysol, I’m air quotes, people who are listening. They, they’re like sanitizing the city and everyone’s literally locked down. This shows that there’s something wrong. Look at their death rates, like it was it was just very apparent to me that something was a lot worse than we were hearing about. And so, I that, I’m fine with being wrong, too. That’s another thing like not having established sets of beliefs where it’s like, the data changes, you change. And it’s like, okay, it’s easy. I was wrong about that. Now, I’m going to go with this because this is what the data is showing. And it’s just like a huge weight off your shoulders. What was the question?

Brad: The project.

Veronica: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brad: The dashboard project data.

Veronica: I love dashboards, yeah.

Brad: I think the poker community was kind of on top of it, from the get go in the Coronavirus instance. We do analyze data, we do look at things logically.

Veronica: Except for Mike Madison. He was not.

Brad: He’s turned around now

Veronica: He’s turned around now, yeah.

Brad: He’s the shocking, the most shocking thing in the world is he’s actually what happened his opinion.

Veronica: Let’s just say we’re all on a, how do I say this? Like, everybody’s all the like, initial responders are people who believe in data. And then like the people who are like open to it react later. And then the lingering people, the stagnant boat like hard-line belief system people, they’re forced to be pulled, like we’ve all moved to the one side of the boat. And now they’re like falling towards us. They have no choice. He basically has no choice at this point.

Brad: But I still

Veronica: Fox News turned around.

Brad: Yeah, I still I get I get it right. Like I understand it, I still find it commendable if somebody can change their opinion, like this is, ideally, everybody would change their opinion. Right? So I agree, even if I know, even if you disagree with people’s past what they do, you don’t like them. As long as they eventually come around. This is an overall good thing, in my opinion.

Veronica: Right. And so, one thing I want to say about that is you’re right, 100%, right. And we have this problem where, where we throw politicians under the bus for changing their mind. And I’m like, I don’t want to vote for someone who’s like, for 30 years, I thought this and I’m still studying. Like, we literally want politicians to be like, you know what, I was wrong about something. I’ve now revisited that. And I’ve updated what I know about it. And I’ve changed my mind. And we should applaud that. I tweeted about that, too.

Brad: Yeah, I mean, this is just this is obvious, like, logically, logically, it’s obvious that you want somebody who can have a belief, get introduced to new information, change that belief based on the new data and the new information. This is called growth. This is called learning and becoming a better human being. Imagine being presented with information that contradicts your belief, and just dismissing it for years and bragging about it.

Veronica: Or having new mental gymnastics.

Brad: Right. Like having to rearrange the story in your head so that it makes sense somehow. That to me is like, kind of the dumbest thing.

Veronica: I know a person who’s a young earth creationist, and I like she’s a really nice person. But like the mental gymnastics she has to do about dinosaur bones, man, it’s just tough. I’m just like, man, just accept it like this is, this is hard for you. Like you have to really like God really put those there to like, test you, right? Like, that sounds really difficult to try to, try to like, I don’t know, rationalize in your head.

Brad: Sure. It’s just a story. And you have to, you can’t have competing beliefs that are different, and at the same time, so you have to figure out a way to make the one belief

Veronica: Mental gymnastics.

Brad: Yeah, exactly. It’s the stories you tell in your head. Alright, final question. Where can the chasing poker greatness audience find you on the world wide web?

Veronica: angry_ polak on Twitter. And I’m the same on Instagram. But I’m angry_polakv. And, and then I have a YouTube channel with the same name.

Brad: Awesome.

Veronica: Which is just super boring. Don’t bother.

Brad: The greatest, the greatest pitch for a YouTube channel ever.

Veronica: I didn’t really make it for to become like the next Doug Polk or anything. I just, I honestly just made it to like, help me fight off some of this depression I was having out here. So, I mean, it’s, it’s fine.

Brad: One thing, right before we go, talk about KL you started the stack. Stack KL,

Veronica: It’s like the worst possible time. So, I had KL on my, on my show. And he, you know, I was asking him when he was, what he was going to play for the series. And he alluded to the fact that he didn’t have transportation. I know how difficult it is to get transportation, for wheelchairs and stuff, my son with special needs. And he was still small enough for us to be able to put him in a car, but we did have to face, you know, the thought of buying something in the near future. And typically, the way it works is that you have to pay for a van up front. And you have to pay for the whole thing which a lot of people don’t have like $35,000 in their bank account. And then you have to get it modified which is like another $35,000 and then you have to apply to the government for reimbursement and they give you back a percentage of the modification. And I know that the van that he needs for the equipment he needed he told me it was like $75,000 and I was like this is really unfair because he was talking to me about before poker. He was trying to get a job and like he couldn’t get a job, he has a degree in marketing. He couldn’t get the job because they were like, so concerned about him using the bathroom, you know, and these are things that I don’t go through. These are worries I don’t have and it’s so it frustrates me to no end that, like, I can go lease a car. I can go lease a car for 200 bucks a month, get in it, and I don’t need to put down $75,000 to get something that’s suitable for me. And his family. I know his dad is his primary caregiver. And I know that I had to stop working to take care of my son. And it can be a strain financially. And on top of that people are having to, you know, pay for this van. So, I wanted to raise some money in a kind of a humorous way. I wanted to say like, look, my goal is to get him to the series to stack him. I just want to like, stack him and slow roll the shit out of him. And the only way we’re going to do that is by getting this van for him. So, like, it was a humorous way of like pretending that I didn’t really care about the van. It was more about stacking, but really like I would like to get him some transportation. Right now, it couldn’t have happened at the, at a worst time because everyone is financially depleted with not working. People are losing jobs, the World Series of Poker is probably going to be canceled. And I’m like, I had the video for a while like right when Coronavirus was like just starting to gain momentum in the states it was getting it was pretty big in China. And I was I was like, maybe, maybe it’ll die down, maybe it’ll be less impactful in the States. And I was looking at the graphs, I’m like, oh, fuck, we’re fucked. And I put out the video. And I was like, like, we have about $5,000 in donations, but there’s no way we’re going to get $75,000 this year. I’m going to try to gain a little bit more momentum with it. Probably towards the end of the year, like in the fall, I’ll probably do like a live stream fundraiser. And I’ll try to get like Joey Ingram and, and Berkey as guests and we’ll just like live stream and get donations. But like, I don’t know. I don’t know if I could have picked a worse time to do this.

Brad: It’s bad luck, its, its, I had KL, KL on my show as well. Really awesome dude. And

Veronica: Brilliant guy. I really like him.

Brad: The thing is, one of my parts of my daily process that I have been historically more diligent about doing is being grateful for three things every day. And sometimes I get feedback that says, I don’t know what to be grateful for? What do I have to be grateful for? Well, it’s because you’re looking up, and you’re not looking down at the things that you have. And the ability to travel, the ability to get out of bed and walk around is something to be grateful for. And it’s heartbreaking. I wish that this GoFundMe could just crush it, and he could get his van and you know, he could travel around and play some cards. Have the experiences of playing cards in real life. And maybe that will happen down the road. But I will link to this GoFundMe on this show page. And if you, you know, whatever you decide to do in the future, let me know and I’ll do whatever I can to help.

Veronica: Yeah. I’ll send you the video. It’s kind of funny. And the video also has the link to the GoFundMe page. Maybe people will enjoy watching that, but I, I’m pretty stubborn. And I will continue this fundraiser. It probably won’t happen this year. But I think maybe by next spring, we could have something or next summer if we can have the series in ‘21. But yeah, worst possible time. But KL’s an exceptional human. He’s brilliant. He’s pretty, pretty awesome guy and funny. Has a great sense of humor.

Brad: Absolutely. Nothing,

Veronica: Which is I wouldn’t have done it without, without him being as, as, as funny as he is and, and him and I were talking about doing like a monthly show together on my channel and he wanted to call it the Blonde and the Cripple. And I’m like, oh my god, KL. Not a lot of people can get your humor like I don’t think that’s a good title.

Brad: Yeah. It’s, I see the tweets and I cringe a little sometimes. I’m like, oh, like somebody poses to him. Yeah, they just like crush him like so somebody was like, you’re the you’re the strongest person that I know, nothing could stop you KL. Except for a curb. And I’m like, 

Veronica: Yeah, or a set of stairs. But I mean, he’s, he’s friends with those guys. And like, I think that yeah

Brad: He kind of got to be right. Like, it’s like it’s hard for, it’s almost sociopathic for somebody to say that without knowing

Veronica: Right.

Brad: That that person has a good sense of humor.

Veronica: Yeah, he, he likes the self-deprecating humor. So, I mean, we all I think that’s some of the funniest stuff. I mean, that’s why I’m called Angry Polack. Polack is like a derogatory term for Polish people. So.

Brad: Right, right. Well, it’s been great talking to you. 

Veronica: You too. It’s really nice meeting you.

Brad: Yeah, you too. Let’s do it again. Specifically, or especially when we get the KL thing going or you get the KL thing going, and I’m supporting it in my own way.

Veronica: Yes, for sure. Yeah, we’ll do one of those. I don’t know. I’m sure I’ll come up with some. Well,

Brad: You got time. Take care.

 

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